APS is a national workforce management and cloud-based HR solution provider. The platform includes core HR, payroll, time and attendance (including manager and employee self-service), compliance tools, and onboarding.
N/A
BambooHR®
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
BambooHR is an cloud-based human resources solution that provides onboarding, payroll, and benefits management. It also offers automated time-off management and employee self-service.
$10
per month per user
Pricing
APS
BambooHR®
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Core
$10
per month per user
Pro
Contact Sales
per month
Elite
Contact Sales
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
APS
BambooHR®
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
Optional
Optional
Additional Details
The Payroll solution is offered as a standalone service, but additional solutions must be used in conjunction with the Payroll solution.
APS Payroll is an easy to use payroll system, and integrates well with some things such as the APS Hire feature, which handles onboarding, and the eSelfServe timeclock feature. It exports well to Quickbooks, but is only ok with NetSuite. (It works but is a completely manual process and takes a lot of setup.) Our tax registration and filing has been fine and we're always apprised of any tax discrepancies such as small Unemployment overages/underages when filed compared to what was withheld.
Performance management - the prompt questions are really helpful in distilling thoughts! Though it would still be great to have an optional box for additional feedback that might not be directly related to the prompt questions. The clean interface and user friendliness is a definite plus! But some specific features, eg. on TOIL application - it would be helpful to ensure it is intuitive to use, rather than confusing with the input process.
It's fast and intuitive. Our previous contractors were ADP and Paychex and neither were intuitive. Our payroll runs have less errors now than with previous vendors. Payroll prep time is down from 5 hours with ADP to 2 hours with APS for the HR Manager.
The limiters are great. I'm always afraid of that error that no one caught. Let's assume that you add a $200 limiter to overtime. Any time that a staff member is about to receive more than $200 in overtime for that pay period, a red flag goes up for the HR manager to double check.
We have 3 programs in public schools that block certain ports. APS has a 2nd feature using GPS so that staff can only check in for their shift while they are in the designated GPS range. Great for someone who has to report to a remote location. Just add the GPS coordinates and they can't check until they get to the project.
Recruiting- communications are easy for both the internal team and candidates
Onboarding- the onboarding tasks are great. I love being able to attach documents as well as delay sending out tasks
Communication- the employee community is a great tool to keep our communications clean and organized. I love that we now have insight as to who has viewed the comms
Reporting - We have six different business units and the reporting is separate for all three. Most reporting I do requires information from all business units so am running six reports and then copying and pasting to get the report I need.
Multi-state taxes - We have a number of employees who live in New York and work in New Jersey. APS OnLine is designed to accommodate one state withholding so ability to have "worked in" state and "lived in" state taxes withheld went away. This was a shortfall.
The Carrier connection setup took much longer than expected. After a year, we are still having some issues with some items transferring over to the GL.
The CA overtime calculation does not calculate after 8 hours per day, only on the 40 per week so we override each week.
Reporting - when running Benefit reports, it recognizes employees who formerly carried the plan but may have dropped it. To get around this, we have to delete off the employee's record so the history is not readily available.
The biggest issue is on performance assessments. We are not able to customize the reminder dates so the automated reminder dates shown to people and on the email reminders is often misaligned with our actual internal deadlines. This causes a lot of confusion each review cycle.
Also on performance management, there is no way to push feedback to a supervisor for their direct report. The only way is if the manager requests the feedback from you. This limits the opportunity for people to give real time feedback throughout the half.
I wish we had a way to track notes from employee 1:1s in BambooHR® so when we do our performance reviews we can track. That may be a module we didn't purchase but it would facilitate more continuous and comprehensive evaluation of people at review time.
I have been using the system for over a year now and feel more comfortable with the functionality of it. I have just recently implemented the benefit administration portion.
There's nothing wrong with this platform. I would recommend it to any business starting with more than 10 employees. I will continue to use the program for as long as I need to, hoping they continue being tremendous and finding other ways to incorporate more technology.
The APS Payroll software is very easy to use, and it is easy to train new employees on it. The APS Payroll support team is very helpful and response time is quick. It is easy to enter/change employee information, adjust salaries and benefits, etc. New features have also been added that makes it even better, such as being able to set up your own income/deduction items.
Just because there's a little complex with everything that's rolling out and so I have had to walk some people through functionality because there's just so much to click at this point. Another thing is the review process doesn't allow for ratings with a number scale, and I know we're kind of getting away from that as an industry, but with our previous system we have been rating people for their merit percent increase on their wages at the end of the year and it doesn't have the functionality to do that.
Yes, there is a huge team in the back of the online platform or it looks like it because I have never been left without an answer when I have a question or waiting from a response on my chat .... There must be a huge team, this is so great and I always seem to have someone that is very knowledgeable too. So many times in the past I had to leave with customer service that would connect you with someone else because of the expertise, here everyone seems to be some kind of an expert in the HR function.
I love BambooHR. Reports are easy to run and download and it usually covers any types of requests I get from the management team. You get excel or .csv downloads/reports and it is fast and simple, not too crowded so it is easy to read through. We don't integrate the tool yet but again, soon we will. we just did not had the time to utilize it yet but that's the plan.
I had to learn APS on my own, and the support team held my hand. They are still there when I have an occasional question. Anytime I need support, I can call my rep or send an email and help is on the way, without failure. The support team is awesome
I use the chat feature most often and the wait times can be long, but often I do get right in. When they promise to follow up, they always do. It seems the "support hero's" are very well training and knowledgeable. There are lots of resources in the form of print or video, too.
Overall this training was great and our implementation specialist was wonderful and very helpful. We felt really prepared once our training was completed, But we could get additional help immediately even when we were live. The continuation Support heros after implementation are wonderful and you can always get a LIVE person each time you call into their office.
It would have been helpful to understand the phases of the implementation up front so I could have prepared differently for enrollments, billing, and transfer of information to payroll. At the end of the day, I'm happy with the selection and the system and anticipate I will like it better as we go along. We have done a number of other system implementations in the past few years, and this has been pretty painless, however, I've had a few surprises.
We implemented bambooHR in Fall, 2023 then implemented Payroll 1/1/24. A vital piece of information was not known or missed in that we are exempt from State Unemployment Tax and have a Reimbursement Set-up, so bambooHR did not send Payroll Reports to the State. Those reports need to be sent regardless if we are exempt or not.
We had used ADP for years and had always struggled with their customer service. With over 20 locations (20+ W2s, quarterly filings, etc) we had a lot of questions. We would have to call and sit on hold for long periods of time to talk to someone who couldn't always answer our questions. Then we would get different answers from different people or have to re-explain our issue. It was a major time suck for my employees and they dreaded having to call all of the time. For us - the final straws for us to switch providers were: +Numerous year end filings with incorrect names and addresses (they couldn't keep our 20+ locations separate even though our paperwork was completed correctly) +Incorrect SUI rates for several locations that resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in overpayments which was a lot of money for small hotels. We had sent in numerous requests for them to fix this but it never happened +Lack of care - even though we were having all of these issues, nobody would work with us to get them all resolved and make sure to remedy the situation. We had to seek out a manager to get them resolved but even after this, we still had more issues. Overall - DON'T stick with ADP or even think about switching to them. They might be able to slash prices but their poor customer service and lack of care will cost you in the end. It's not worth it. APS does everything ADP had the capability of but we don't have the errors or headaches we did before. I am really looking forward to this year end!
Lattice is much more oriented towards performance management. It includes many more advanced performance management features from building actual assessments to also performance development planning. BambooHR® for us was a place to centralize our data and build from within as well as connect to external integrations. PerformYard is what we used prior to BambooHR® for onboarding workflows and performance reviews, but BambooHR® is far superior.
Since my organization has dropped with employees, I always find ways to reduce costs. I thought there would be a cheaper option, but I was glad that my package included a lot for the price, and downgrading would cost more. The rep could have let me downgraded and taken me to a higher package. I am thankful that didn't happen.
There is so much you can do with this platform, it is incredible and so welcoming. We don't utilize it 100% yet just because we are growing and the HR team has not been able to concentrate on other areas offered to us but but we will soon. Which is also why we got the product, specifically because what BambooHR can do to help us meet our growing business needs.
We were able to transition quickly and continue to successfully hire and onboard new hires for several Clubs that opened within weeks of moving to APS.
We do struggle a bit with the ease of reporting simply because our locations are all under separate EIN and that can make it difficult to easily combine data queried under custom reports, so the volume of reporting that I might wish to be able to push through weekly in order to help address 'real time' trends is not always available.
The lack of effective dating for position and wage changes does mean that HR and available APS data is not 'real time' accurate and that HR does need to return to the system to update changes well after-the-fact, which is not ideal.
Time Savings: Automating onboarding, payroll, and employee record management has cut HR admin time by up to 30%, allowing teams to focus on strategic initiatives instead of paperwork.
Improved Onboarding: Streamlined workflows have cut onboarding time by nearly 50%, ensuring new hires are productive faster, reducing turnover risk in the critical first months.
- Enhanced Informational Clarity: Centralized employee data means fewer errors and faster access to essential information, reducing compliance risks and increasing accuracy in reporting.
